MontanaRon

An English teacher's blog about his travels and his digital art.

Month: January 2008

Another Beautiful Friday

January 25, 2008 /

Lucky me, it was another Friday off (the final one). There’s no practice tomorrow, so the players were again allowed to leave the camp early to return to their homes. The schedule will get back to normal this coming week, when 40 or so more players will be checking in to the camp. All of the new players will be going to Tampa at the end of February, some for a month or so and some to stay and play minor league ball. Most have been to the U.S. before and have decent English language skills, so I’ll be able to do a lot more with them in class, focusing mainly on Content Based Instruction (CBI). In CBI, the focus is on the subject matter, rather than on the language itself. So, for the players with the higher English skills who have been to the U.S. before, I’m going to teach the historical aspects of baseball, including the race issue, the advent of Latin American players into the majors, the history of the Yankees and more.

For those advanced speakers of English who are going to the States at the end of February but who have not been there before, I’m going to emphasize situations, like going through airports, staying in a hotel, using public transportation, etc. For the guys who will be staying here for the Dominican Summer League, the language itself will be a primary concern in the classroom, mainly conversational English.

At any rate, I’ll have my hands full soon, with the occasional Friday off nothing but a remote dream. Not that I’m off today, of course–I did have office hours at the beach in Boca Chica while working on the upcoming week. One of the waiters at the establishment where I hold Weekend Office Hours told me that Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera and another Major League Yankee player–probably Edwar Ramirez–had ambled down the beach just a few minutes before I arrived. If they had come back, I would have said hello to them and asked them if they knew whether or not the fans in New York City send off their baseball equipment trucks to Tampa with kisses. (For an explanation of this bizarre form of pagan idol worship, read the comments at the end of the previous post. Click on comments. By the way, OGM is one of the few people who post comments on the blog. Forgive her–she’s from Boston and is a very devout baseball and Red Sox fan. (Gag) 😛 Feel free to post a comment, though, whoever you are, if the mood strikes you. Just click on “No Comments” or ” 2 Comments” or whatever at the end of any blog entry.)

I’ve finally finished posting the remaining Laos photos to the Gallery, so I should be adding Montana photos soon, as time permits. I’ll let you know.

Speaking of Laos, I read an article this morning about the continuing efforts to clear the country of unexploded bombs (UXO) left over from the Vietnam War. A short quote from the article:

“Laos is one of the most heavily bombed countries in the world, suffering from intense ground battles and aerial bombardment during the Indochina War.

More than 580,000 bombing missions resulted in more than two million tonnes of bombs being dropped during the 10 year period of conflict. About 30 percent of these did not explode on impact.”

Read the rest of it here. Very tragic and so completely immoral. More later.

Weekend Musings

January 22, 2008 /

With most of the players gone, the camp was unusually quiet this past weekend–no players, office staff or coaches and only a small group of housekeepers and ground crew. Unfortunately, with few people to feed, meals were sparse until Sunday dinner, by which time the players who went home were supposed to return. I looked in on breakfast Saturday morning and, as I suspected, the Blue Plate Special was Mystery-Meat-and-Cheese Sandwiches. I passed on it and didn’t hang around for lunch. Instead, I went to my weekend office and worked on upcoming lessons.

My Weekend Office:

Boca_Beach_6

Yes, I did go into Santo Domingo on Friday, but, no, I wasn’t able to change phone companies. I knew of one place in a supermarket close to where my apartment was, but they don’t sell the actual SIM cards, only the recharge cards. I’ll have to go back to the Capital in a few weeks and try to find a larger shop that has the SIM card I need.

I laid off jogging on Friday because the fields were too wet from a late Thursday afternoon rain shower. So, having rested a day, I was able to break my all-time jogging record on Saturday morning–1 hour, 17 minutes. What a Marathon Man I’m becoming. 😉 Too bad none of the remaining players in camp were up to cheer me on, but with the day off, they were all sleeping. Deadbeats. More later.

Off Day

January 18, 2008 /

Rumors have been swirling around all week that the pitchers would be allowed to go home today, Friday. Other whisperings had it that maybe it would be the position players, or, perhaps, all players could go home. From past experience, I’ve learned never to believe anything the players (and some of the coaches) tell me about such things. Despite that, I did make alternative plans for lessons today. There have been occasions in the past when the kids were allowed to leave on Friday, but the stipulation has been that they couldn’t go until after English classes. So, I told the pitchers that if they were allowed to leave, I would have an early (1 p.m.) class for them today.

I’ve been waiting to hear something. Just now, Julio, kind of the second-in-command after Victor, told me that ALL of the players were being allowed to go home today AND that English classes were canceled. Sweeeeeeet! I was planning to go to Santo Domingo tomorrow, but I’m going to ride the Yankee bus with the players to the capital today. I want to get a different SIM card for my phone. The Orange Card that I use now has poor reception here at the camp, but I’m told the Centennial Card picks up a strong signal.
Soon, I have to begin sending out new job applications, and a lot of schools will want to do phone interviews. With the Centennial card, they’ll be assured of getting in touch with me.

Yes, unfortunately, the English Language Fellowship (ELF) position that I’m in isn’t being renewed for another year. Most of the ELF jobs are only for one year, so I was fortunate to have this one for two. I’ll probably apply for university positions in South Korea, China and, possibly, Thailand. Hopefully, I’ll find something that pays pretty good wages and offers other nice benefits, like free housing and a few months paid vacation, standard at most Korean universities. There’s also a chance that I might talk to the Yankees about employment with them directly. Nothing firm yet, though. More later.

Winter in the D.R.

January 17, 2008 /

Heh, heh, not really, but in the last post, I bragged about being away from the snow and cold. That being said, though, it can get downright chilly here in the early morning hours. I’d bet the temperature drops into the high 50s. If you’re not used to that, it seems cooler than it is. I start jogging about 6:45 a.m., and I can tell you that it takes a while to warm up. Of course, after my usual hour-long run, I’m dripping wet. I have to leave my glasses in my room because they fog up due to the ambient temperature clashing with the heat coming off my face. Luckily, there aren’t too many obstacles to trip me up in the faint light of the early morning.

Right now, English classes are pretty relaxed, with only 28 players in camp. That will change the week after next when the overseas players arrive–the total will then jump to about 70 players, including more Dominicans who will also be coming.

I continue to add more photos to the Laos ’07 photo gallery, and soon, hopefully, I’ll be able to start posting some shots of the Montana portion of my time off last year. Stay tuned for more later.

No More Big City Living

January 15, 2008 /

I arrived back at the baseball camp near Boca Chica on Sunday morning, and it felt great to leave all the noise, pollution and chaos of Santo Domingo behind. I dropped my bags off at my room at the camp and took my taxi, which waited for me, into Boca Chica. I had to get a haircut and buy some REAL coffee for the Mr. Coffee machine in my room. (I’d been drinking Nescafe Instant for the last 6 weeks. 😥 Of course, I could have done these tasks in S.D., but I needed an excuse to go to the beach!

I was happy to find that the multitude of young shoe-shine boys has doubled or tripled. I don’t wear dress shoes, but they can also clean tennis shoes, so they don’t have a reason to bypass me. I’m gonna have to start wearing flip-flops when I go into B.C., since I’m sure they would insist they could clean sandals, too. They’re cute kids, 7-9 years old, but they can be quite the pests when you’re in the town. I hardly ever see them on the beach; thus, another reason to spend time there, soaking up some sun, writing lesson plans and notes for the blog.

So, it’s back to work. Basically, I goofed off while I was in S.D., except for a couple of workshops I conducted earlier, which was not a problem because I get 20 working days off. The embassy didn’t have anything for me to do; it was holiday time and the schools were out, so I looked at the time as a vacation. Some of you have indicated that I’m on perpetual vacation. (And you know who you are.) Not so! //sarcasm on// I miss the foot-deep snow and sub-freezing temperatures of Montana winters. //sarcasm off//

Below are a couple of photos. As you can see, the view from my apartment in S.D. was less than ideal for photographing sunsets.

Sunset-1-10-08

And one from the camp just last evening.

Sunset-1-14-08

Back to Camp

January 10, 2008 /

I got a very unexpected phone call this morning from Ani at the Yankee baseball camp in Boca Chica. It seems they’ve decided to reopen this coming Monday, the 14th. That’s about 2-3 weeks early, but I’m not complaining a bit. It’ll be great to get out of noisy, polluted, crowded Santo Domingo and return to the relative calm and beauty of the camp. Even though I had planned to keep busy working almost exclusively on my teachers’ resource manual for the baseball camp until the end of the month, I’m happy to be able to get out of the Big City early. I’ll have a heck of a lot of work to do, but that’s ok. So, I’m getting packed and I’ll be outta here on Sunday morning.

I’ve still got some time to post more photos to the gallery, and I’ve started uploading some of the Laos photos here (and many more to come), if you’re interested. More later.

Dining Out

January 8, 2008 /

I did an early jog today to avoid the late afternoon rainstorms. Walking back to my apartment, I passed a man digging through some garbage that had been left for collection. He’d found some grapes that had been thrown out and was diligently eating them. Sad, that people can be reduced to this. I would have given him some money, but I don’t carry any with me when I’m out running. Not a pleasant sight.

I’ve posted more pictures on the Photo Gallery here. These are ones I took in Bangkok, and eventually (a day or two?, a week or two?, later?) I’ll put up ones from Phuket, Nong Khai, and Laos. More later.

New Photos

January 7, 2008 /

Finally, I’ve gotten around to posting photos to the Photo Gallery of my most recent visit to Southeast Asia in July, August and September of last year. The first group of photos was taken in Singapore and you can see them here if you’re interested. I’m going to try to get the Thailand/Laos photos up in the next couple of weeks–there are a LOT of them. These were all taken with the small compact camera, rather than the digital Rebel, so the quality is somewhat not up to my usual standards, but they’re still decent.

Rain showers during most of the afternoon washed out my jogging session today. These sudden tropical downpours are cropping up only in the afternoon, so maybe I’ll have to move my torture sessions to the morning hours.

A Few Photos

January 5, 2008 /

When I woke up this morning, it was raining again, though not much, perhaps a snow factor of 1/2 inch. (I refer to a snow factor so that those of you in less fortunate climates can compare.) It stopped yesterday just in time for me to take my daily jog. 🙁 At least it was breezy and cool, since the sun remained trapped behind the clouds. Plus, no crazies with automobiles intruded into the safe zone.

I notice I haven’t posted many photos lately. That’s mainly because I haven’t taken that many and the ones I have taken aren’t all that exciting or unique. To break the monotony, here are a few I found on my small camera.

I was walking along the Malecon when I spotted these two boats nicely framed by a tree. Sorry, I’m not good with tree names, but this gnarly type is found all along the oceanfront boulevard.

Boats1

Here is one of the large cruise ships which call on Santo Domingo. This is one of the Holland America Line ships. I was sitting in D’Luis Restaurant along the Malecon when this one left port.

Cruise_Ship1

This fisherman is either offering thanks for the daily catch or describing the size of the one that got away.

Fisherman1

Adventure Walking

January 4, 2008 /

Santo Domingo has to be one of the most pedestrian-unfriendly cities I’ve ever walked in. You definitely need to use the eyes in back of your head (and on the sides). If you don’t have eyes in back of your head, stay home. The drivers here, for the most part, have absolutely no respect for people on foot. Crosswalks are a joke and crossing streets with the light in your favor always involves risk. After the light changes from red to green, I always wait for about 5 seconds to cross because there always seems to be someone barreling along, not paying attention or else trying to blast across the street before the right-of-way traffic blocks the road entirely. I’ve almost been hit more than once, but, luckily, I was able to avoid the idiots at the last second.

Here’s a case in point from yesterday. The avenue that runs through the Parque Mirador del Sur is shut down to traffic from 4 p.m. to about 7 p.m. That’s when I do my almost-daily jog, as do hordes of others out exercising, roller blading, or bicycle riding. I got an early start yesterday, at 4, and the road was pretty much deserted of any other joggers. I ran for about half an hour then turned around and headed back to where I had started from. All of a sudden, a white car followed by a motorbike came racing down the avenue towards me and passed about 5 feet from me doing around 30-40 mph. I shouted out “estupidos” to them, but I’m sure they didn’t hear me. They weren’t police or security people; they looked like ordinary idiots trying to take a short cut through the restricted zone. If either of us had been a tad bit less aware, I’d have been plastered all over the avenue. You really, really have to pay attention as a pedestrian, no matter where you’re walking or jogging, even in a “safe” zone.

Walking on the sidewalks can be an adventure, too. Because of the intense traffic jams, motorbikers will avoid the delays by using the sidewalks. Also, more often than not, people can’t find a place to park on the street–no problem, just park on the sidewalk. At times, I have to walk into the street to get around the parked car(s). Like I said, it’s one of the most pedestrian-unfriendly cities I’ve seen.

It’s been raining since early this morning, several hours now, but not a very heavy rain, more like a continuous light shower. If this were Montana, we’d have 3 to 4 inches of snow on the ground by now. Lucky for me, it’s not.

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